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It’s estimated that there are about 340 million firearms in the U.S., or about 112 per 100 residents. There’s no denying we have a gun culture in the U.S., so you’d think Americans would be pretty savvy when it came to their understanding of the Second Amendment and the ubiquitous gun. Think again.

Whether it’s the fault of intentional anti-gun misinformation or of testosterone-fueled Call of Duty online gaming, John Q has a remarkable lack of understanding about all things Second Amendment.

When I was a cop, the joke with respect to calling 911 in an emergency was, “When seconds count, we’re only minutes away.” Yet John Q is entrenched with the idea that government will protect him and he will reach out and touch someone with a cell phone by calling 911.

Here’s a thought. According to American Police Beat, the average patrol car response time to a 911 call is 10 minutes with speeds exceeding 70 miles per hour. On the other hand-or perhaps more appropriately, “in the other hand”-a Glock 34 responds instantly with a 9mm bullet traveling at about 1,400 feet per second. Whether that bullet is flying toward you or toward the intruder is your call. Enough said.

Another myth perpetuated by the anti-gun cabal says concealed carry will result in blood running in the streets and there will be an increase in crime because of the proliferation of guns on the street. Really, the proliferation of guns on the street? As if the streets of Chicago aren’t awash in illegal guns already?

The fact is there are about 11.1 million concealed carry permit holders in the United States today. According to the Violence Policy Center, a non-profit that makes Michael Bloomberg look like a pro-gun advocate, about 516 people have been killed since May 2007 in non-self-defense incidents involving private citizens legally allowed to carry a concealed handgun. That comes out to be about .00004649 percent of all concealed carry permit owners in the United States. But let’s be honest. Concealed carry laws have a lot less to do with safety and a lot more to do with the state’s treasury. Since Florida passed concealed carry in 1987, they have issued about 2.5 million permits at $120 a pop. You do the math and decide if they’re doing it out of altruism or not.

And finally, we have the uber-left dogma: “More guns don’t mean a safer society.” Aside from the State of California, a sort of reverse Noah’s Ark where every nutball in the country gravitates toward the San Andreas Fault, Chicago has at least the second-most Draconian gun laws in the country yet one of the highest per capita murder rates. Let me put Chicago’s reputation as murder capital of the U.S. in perspective. When I was introduced to Governor Kanda, the Governor of the Achi Prefecture in Japan, who spoke no English, his response to learning I was from Chicago was to point both his index fingers at me and make a machine gun sound.

Okay, so the liberal, anti-gun crowd blames all that on the ability to get guns from outside the city limits. They also argue that Chicago has a “gang problem” and gangs have the ability to obtain guns illegally and use them profusely. Gee, ya think?

But here’s the rub: by Chicago’s own statistics, since Illinois Concealed Carry went into effect, the number of robberies that have led to arrests in Chicago has declined 20 percent. Reports of burglary and motor vehicle theft are down 20 percent and 26 percent, respectively. Those numbers dropped in an inverse relationship to the number of concealed carry permits issued in Illinois.

So here’s the bottom line. John Q is being duped by the liberal progressive anti-gun cabal, and the problem is the great majority of pro-gun folks really don’t know the facts. When confronted with a lying liberal pushing an anti-gun agenda, an occasion that occurs about as frequently as someone from Nigeria telling you that you won the lottery, they don’t know how to respond – the pro-gun guys, not the Nigerian con artists. So the fallback is always, “It’s our Constitutional right!”

Now there’s nothing wrong with that, but it presumes the accusation is correct and that you’re trying to justify it. The point is we are rapidly approaching the most important election in the history of this country. Voting has never been more critical but even more important is to be able to educate your family, friends and anyone who will listen to the truth about the Second Amendment. This election will be the determining factor with respect to the right to keep and bear arms. Instead of playing Call of Duty, how about heeding the call to duty, brush up on your facts and start winning converts. http://reverbpress.com/politics/firearms-per-capita-by-state/